"I was walking home from school the other day and I met a little boy and girl.” 1

The

In this sentence, the offence against unity consists in making the main idea and the subordinate idea co-ordinate in form. main idea is in the second clause; to make this idea prominent, the sentence should read, "As I was walking home from school the other day, I met a little boy and a little girl.”

A similar fault is committed in the following sentence: "These [doors] were opened by a grim old Highlander with a long white beard, and displayed a very steep and narrow flight of steps leading downward." 2

"The chief of every day was spent by him at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed."

In this sentence, the second clause is so framed as to seem to be co-ordinate with the first; but in thought it is subordinate. Tu make this subordination apparent, the sentence might be written thus: "The chief part of every day he spent at Lucas Lodge, sometimes returning to Longbourn," etc.

"That these statements are true is not a matter of theoretical controversy: a brief historical survey will conclusively settle the question."4

In this sentence, the two propositions separated by a colon are treated as if they were of equal importance and not closely connected. Unity as well as clearness would be promoted by recasting the second part of the sentence thus: "as a brief historical survey will conclusively show."

"I was walking along the street when I saw two little messenger boys sitting on the steps and opening some bundles which they were carrying." 4

In this sentence, the subordinate idea is presented as the main idea, the main idea as subordinate. To bring out the proper relation between the two ideas, we might say, "As I was walking along the street, I saw," etc.

Although it has been the fashion to laugh at the doings of the

1 Student's theme. For the omission, see pages 146, 147.

2 Scott: A Legend of Montrose, chap. xii.

8 Miss Austen: Pride and Prejudice, vol. i. chap. xxiii.

4 Student's theme,

Concord school as above the heads of ordinary mortals, I remember being greatly interested both in the papers read and in the informal remarks which followed." 1

The fault in this sentence is that words which would make the connection of thought clear are omitted. To connect the second clause with the first, we might say, "my observation leads me to a different conclusion; for I was, I remember, greatly interested," etc.

Lack of unity caused by

Such are some of the ways in which the principle of unity in a sentence may be violated. To illustrate all the varieties of error that fall under this head would take much more space than is at our command; for sins against unity spring from confusion of thought, and confusion of thought has many forms.

confusion of thought.

SECTION V.

KINDS OF SENTENCES.

The principles which govern the choice, the number, and the arrangement of words apply to every sentence, whatever its length or its structure.

sentences?

In our day, although we occasionally see a sentence of only two or three words and occasionally one of two Short or long hundred, extremely SHORT and extremely LONG SENTENCES are rare. Often the distinction between the two is so slight that a change in punctuation, phraseology, or arrangement suffices to put material that is scattered through several sentences into one, or material that is stretched through one sentence into several. When the difference is merely a matter of punctuation, and still

1 Student's theme.

more when it is a matter of substance, the choice between short and long sentences depends partly on the nature of the subject-matter and partly on the character of the persons addressed. To recommend the use of short sentences almost exclusively, as some writers do, is to look at the subject from but one point of view. The opposite point of view was taken by Coleridge:

"I can never so far sacrifice my judgment to the desire of being immediately popular, as to cast my sentences in the French moulds, or affect a style which an ancient critic would have deemed purposely invented for persons troubled with the asthma to read, and for those to comprehend who labour under the more pitiable asthma of a short-witted intellect. . . . It is true that these short and unconnected sentences are easily and instantly understood: but it is equally true, that wanting all the cement of thought as well as of style, all the connections, and (if you will forgive so trivial a metaphor) all the hooks-and-eyes of the memory, they are as easily forgotten or rather, it is scarcely possible that they should be remembered. Nor is it less true, that those who confine their reading to such books dwarf their own faculties, and finally reduce their understandings to a deplorable imbecility. . . . Like idle morning visitors, the brisk and breathless periods hurry in and hurry off in quick and profitless succession; each indeed for the moments of its stay prevents the pain of vacancy, while it in. dulges the love of sloth; but all together they leave the mistress of the house (the soul I mean) flat and exhausted, incapable of attending to her own concerns, and unfitted for the conversation of more rational guests."1

Since Coleridge wrote, the number of writers addicted to short sentences has increased with the increase in the number of readers impatient of delay, eager to grasp at a part of an idea and less and less disposed to use their minds in the effort to understand a long sentence that presents the idea as a whole. Short sentences are, 1 Coleridge: The Friend, vol. i. essay iii.

indeed, in such favor at present that there is little need of setting forth the objections to excessive length. Very few writers of English indulge in sentences like those condemned by De Quincey in the following pas

sages:

"Every German regards a sentence in the light of a package, and a package not for the mail-coach but for the waggon, into which his privilege is to crowd as much as he possibly can. Having framed a sentence, therefore, he next proceeds to pack it, which is effected partly by unwieldy tails and codicils, but chiefly by enormous parenthetic involutions. All qualifications, limitations, exceptions, illustrations, are stuffed and violently rammed into the bowels of the principal proposition. That all this equipage of accessaries is not so arranged as to assist its own orderly development no more occurs to a German as any fault than that in a package of shawls or of carpets the colours and patterns are not fully displayed. To him it is sufficient that they are there. And Mr. Kant, when he has succeeded in packing up a sentence which covers three close-printed octavo pages, stops to draw his breath with the air of one who looks back upon some brilliant and meritorious performance." 1

"Kant was a great man, but he was obtuse and deaf as an antediluvian boulder with regard to language and its capacities. He has sentences which have been measured by a carpenter, and some of them run two feet eight by six inches. Now, a sentence with that enormous span is fit only for the use of a megatherium or a preAdamite. Parts so remote as the beginning and the end of such a sentence can have no sensible relation to each other." 2

The truth is that a short sentence is better for some purposes, a long sentence for others. In books for children short sentences are a necessity; in a narrative, when rapidity is required, they are often effective. In a description, and sometimes in a narrative, long sentences are of use in grouping details which are to make a sing1e

1 De Quincey: Essay on Rhetoric. 2 Ibid. Essay on Language.

Impression; in an exposition or an argument addressed to mature minds they are often serviceable, especially when a writer wishes to bring a number of particulars under one head. In a short sentence, it is comparatively easy to avoid obscurity, weakness, and clumsiness, and to keep one point of view; in a long sentence, it is comparatively easy to show the relation with the context.

In unbroken succession, short sentences distract or confuse the reader, long sentences fatigue him. A skilful writer alternates long with short, using the former, for the most part, to unfold his thought, the latter to enforce it. This is what Burke does in a passage quoted for another purpose.2 After putting a strain upon the reader's attention by a long sentence, a skilful writer relaxes it by a short one. This is what Daniel Webster does in the following passage:

"VENERABLE MEN! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives. that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death; —all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace."8

1 See page 212.

2 See pages 150, 151.

8 Daniel Webster: Address delivered at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1825.